Back to the Labyrinth
by Bedimere
Summary: just a little something mostly action, a little romance just cause it gives a little more flavor to the story
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: After the Fact

Hi, my name is Elias Cadley; I'm seventeen years old, six feet and one inch tall, one hundred and seventy three pounds, with black hair and green eyes (a weird combo I know). I'm also a professional mixed martial artist with emphasis on karate, judo, and tae kwan do. I think that's just about everything you need to know about me, oh wait one more thing; I'm a son of Hades, Greek god of the Underworld.

To make this easier to understand, a lot of you reading this also read Percy Jackson and the Olympians as well as the follow up series Heroes of Olympus. I have one thing to say about those books, they are all true; everything written in those books is one hundred percent fact. What I'm writing here though happens to be quite a while after those events. To put it in perspective Percy and Annabeth as well as their various companions are all in their forties now, they have kids, I know because I'm best friends with their daughter, but we'll get to that later. For now I should probably do what every other writer ever has done, and that is start at the beginning.

My blaring alarm clock was the first thing that greeted me in the morning, and as soon as I was awake I was excited for three reasons, It was the first day of summer break first of all, Second it was my birthday (which only comes second because this is the first day I haven't had to go to school in months), and third today the day I turn seventeen I finally get to go to Camp Half-Blood. I got ready for the day and rushed downstairs, now I know what you're thinking, how could a demigod (a child of Hades no less) survive so long on his own, the thing is I'm not alone. You see my Dad (adoptive dad technically) is also a demigod, a child of Ares, he's the one who's protected me and trained me as I grew. The reason I didn't go to camp before now is that we've never had the money to send me, Dad works in construction and we live in downtown Salt Lake, Utah. So pretty far from camp, a couple weeks ago though he got a promotion so I can finally go though. Oh one more thing I was excited for, supposedly my older brother Nico was going to show up.

So anyways I made my way downstairs and to my surprise he was already their talking with Dad. "Hey Nico!" I exclaimed.

"Hey Eli.' Came his response. 'Happy birthday man, here's your present."

He tossed me a wrapped bundle and the noise it made upon landing in my lap, and the bruise it left from landing their clued me into the fact that it was made of metal. I ripped open the packaging to find a pair of gauntlets as black as night on top of a weird wire mesh made of the same material. I was way excited but first things first.

"What's it made of?"

"Stygian iron, same stuff as my sword, appropriate for a son of Hades, and I knew that you love martial arts, and are completely hopeless with a blade."

"Sweet, so what's the mesh for."

"Oh those go over your shoes; I figured that way you could use your kicks to. Go ahead try 'em on."

I did as he said easing my hands into the metal gloves, and slipping the mesh pieces over my feet. Nothing happened to the mesh, but to my amazement once I had both gauntlets on snugly they morphed into a pair of rings. All I had to do to change them back and forth was think about it, that would come in handy.

After that we sat and talked for a while until it was time to go and catch my plane. As I left with Dad, Nico called out one last time before disappearing into the shadows nearby.

"Say hi to Percy and Annabeth for me I think they'll be their dropping off their daughter Laura. I believe it's her first time too."

I nodded and then we took off for the airport. Sadly I had to break in my new gauntlets before we even got there.

We were about ten minutes from the airport when a bunch of monsters ran out onto the road in front of us shouting

"KILL THE SON OF HADES, KILL THE SON OF ARES!"

Dad reacted immediately years of training just kicking in. He swerved off the road into a near field to take the fight away from any mortals smashing into one of the monsters in the way instantly vaporizing it. As soon as we stopped he hopped out of the car grabbing his massive two handed sword from the back seat.

"Well don't just sit there Eli, you have weapons now, use them!"

I jumped out of the car and willed my rings into gauntlets as the monsters surrounded us. I'd been taught and quizzed practically my whole life on the various monsters that would try to kill me, and these ones were pretty easy to recognize. Gegenees or earth-born, six armed brutes made of dirt. Suddenly they rushed in trying to kill us off fast. The first one came at me while a bunch of others converged on Dad. The thing had hardened spikes of dirt like daggers in each of its hands. I dodged quickly to the left kicking it in the side as I passed, making it stagger back a little as the stygian iron did its job draining just a little bit of its life force. Thinking I was safe for the moment I turned to see how Dad was doing, Big mistake, as I turned back around I got back handed in the face, hard. The hit knocked me back into the car and I had to roll away to avoid getting my face smashed in again. I got up as fast as I could being on the ground would only get me killed. As I stood I saw three earth-born converging on me, so I did the only sensible thing, I charged the three murderous monsters. I ducked under the swing of the first and jabbed it several times in the stomach then dropped down to the ground and swept its legs out from underneath it as I rose I stomped the things head flat reducing the monster to dust. As I stood there I heard the second one come up behind me. Jumping straight up in the air I landed on its shoulders in a sitting position, locking my knees I threw myself backwards pulling the earth-born with me as I hit the ground I let go and rolled away launching it into the third monster that was still hanging back impaling both of them on each others dirt daggers.

After disposing of them I turned again to Dad this time actually safe to do so. As I turned I saw that he had killed the other probably seven earth-born on his own and had only a few scratches to my broken nose.

"Not bad Eli, now let's see if we can still make that plane."

Surprisingly, I still made my flight. Now flying for children of Poseidon is a big no no, for children of Hades it's not much better. I mean I wasn't in danger of being blown out of the sky but needless to say every bit of turbulence had me freaking out. When I finally landed in long island I was convinced that the people who had to sit next to me thought that I was phobic of flying (which I guess I am). Getting off the plane I saw Argus the camp body guard waiting for me. Also getting picked up by Argus was I think the Prettiest girl I'd ever seen. Which in and of itself was terrifying but then I saw her parents who just so happened to be a couple of demigods who had saved the world, twice, Percy and Annabeth Jackson.


	2. Chapter 2

So pop quiz a pretty girl walks up to you and says hi, what do you do

A) say Hi back

B) say something charming like "I knew monsters existed, but I wasn't sure about angels, until now."

C) Play the cool guy and just kind of nod back

or

D) try to choke out a reply that is at least semi-intelligent as you get stared by her parents.

If you guessed D then congrats you are a winner, or a loser if you know from experience. But any ways, that's what I did, I just stood there and gawked while I tried to say something. I have to say, most awkward thirty seconds of my life. The only consolation is that she didn't really notice, she had said hi and then just kind of passed me by to get to the van Argus was standing by. When I realized that's what she was doing i kind of snapped back to being normal, grabbed my stuff and followed her to the car where I loaded my stuff into the truck next to hers and somehow managed to introduce myself.

"Hi my name's Elias Cadley, Eli for short, looks like we'll be going to camp together."

"Hi, again, I'm Laura, and yes it appears so. I'm second generation Poseidon and Athena, what are you?"

"Wow straight to the point, cool, I'm a son of Hades."

"Oh cool my parents are friends with a son of Hades, his names ..."

"Nico right, yeah he's my brother he's also the only child of Hades people tend to recognize, so are those your parents over there."

"Yeah Percy and Annabeth, that's Mom and Dad."

"Quite the legacy to live up to, huh?"

She nodded, but she didn't really seem to mind. I guess that's because she'd always grown up knowing that she'd have big shoes to fill, so she'd just gotten used to the pressure. Honestly i probably would've cracked. We stood there in silence for a little while not sure what to talk about any more until her parents walked over and said.

"alright time to go, everyone's here, load up."

Laura and I looked around and only then realized that we'd been joined by another girl about our age. Of course not wanting to be a jerk I walked up and introduced myself.

"Hi my name's Eli, and this is.."

"Laura' she interuppted looking at me like (i can introduce myself) 'so what's your name, and who's you godly parent?"

the girl looked up (cause to be honest she was pretty short) and said.

"Kayla, and I don't know I haven't been claimed yet."

This of course shocked everyone, after the titan war Percy had made the god's swear to claim all their children by the age of thirteen. And then after the Giant war he had made them renew the Promise and Jason Grace had gotten a similar oath from them as well. As we stood there Percy frowned and leaned over to whisper something in Annabeth's ear, she just nodded and pulled a phone out of her pocket (which I thought was a little strange since cell phones are like signal flares for monsters, but hey). Finally i stepped forward and said.

"hey, no bigee, you'll probably get claimed once we get to camp."

That made her smile, which was good since she had looked like she was about to cry. After that we all loaded up into the van and Argus drove us to camp, the drive there was short and boring or at least not nearly as long or as terrifying as my plane ride. but it was well worth it, now I'd seen pictures of the old camp or how it had looked when my Dad had gone here. When he had been a kid it was just the original twelve cabins arranged in their U shape as well as the strawberry fields and a small plot of forest. But now all the cabins had been completed and were arranged in an omega shape out around the first twelve the strawberry fields had been extended way out and the forest, to me at least, looked massive. I also noticed that up by the Big House (which remained pretty much unchanged from the photos I'd seen) that there were a bunch of smaller houses, it was at that point when Percy suddenly appeared next to me and began speaking (darn near made me jump out of my socks)

"Yep, a lot has changed since we came here. But now we're back for the summer and I look forward to being here again."

"Wait for the summer?" I asked

Of course Annabeth answered for him.

"He means that we're going to be counselors, ever since the end of the giant war and with the oath the gods made to claim their children the camp has been overflowing with demigods, so much so that Chiron can't keep track of them all on his own, and gods know that Mr. D's not going to be much help. I'll be teaching ancient greek as well as the few battle and strategy classes, Percy here will be in charge of water sports, the stables, and the advanced combat class, the regular combat classes are under the direction of Clarisse La Rue."

I actually knew Clarisse, she was Dad's sister, and he had been her second in command during the giant war. Anyways after that brief little interlude we made our way to the big house for orientation. When we got there we were briefly greeted by Chiron but he couldn't stay long, too much to do. Introduction was boring, really I just couldn't wait to really get out into the camp and meet people. So naturally after the last of orientation I got Laura and Kayla's attention and gestured out towards the camp, we'd all arrived together, so why not discover together. Kayla just came right on over, but Laura first looked to her parents, they gave her a quick nod and them continued the converstaion they had started with a couple of the other counselors. once we had gathered up we headed outside.

"so where would you girls like to go first?"

A stupid question in the first place, I totally should have known that they would both like to go to the armory. I shrugged and we wandered around until we found it. It really wasn't that hard to find considering its annexed to the forge. We headed in and started looking around when a small man poked his head out from behind a shelf shouting.

"Hey campers welcome to Leo's shop of wonders, everything is free except the stuff i feel like making you pay for!"

we all jumped back a little surprised (I mean some crazy hispanic man with red hair just jumps out at you, see how you feel). then from around the corner we heard another voice, female this time, say

"Honey leave the campers alone just let them browse."

He through his head back and laughed then gestured to the rest of the room saying.

"Go ahead boy and girls take a look."

we spent about an hour just wandering looking at all the cool things the armory had to offer, there was armor, weapons, miniaturized arcemedes spheres with all sorts of purposes, it was one of the coolest things I'd ever seen, me and Laura pretty much stuck together (I tried to hold her hand a couple of times and had nothing to show for it but a bruise for each attempt) Kayla had gone her own way, and it wasn't long until we found out why. She had found a pair of pistols, they looked like regular 9 mils but they were crafted entirely out of celestial bronze with leather wrapped around the grips.

"One of my finest creations right there."

we all jumped as mister Valdez suddenly popped out of nowhere again, but then turned to look at him.

"finest and most worthless, no one can use them."

"Well why not?" Kayla asked

"Well they don't shoot bullets they fire magic, which means that the person using them has to either have a very high natural reserve of it to draw on, or it'll just use up their life force, and it's just not worth the risk. I'm not even sure why i built them in the first place, they just came to me in a dream about two months ago."

As if she'd been ignoring his entire shpeal about how dangerous they were Kayla reached out to touch them. Leo stepped forward to stop her but stopped himself instead as suddenly, right above her head and right above the guns appeared a pair of crossed torches glowing a misty white color.

"Well then I guess I built them for you, daughter of Hecate goddess of magic."


End file.
